Faceless Evil
by Shadowblade217
Summary: After defeating the Nogitsune, Scott, Stiles, and the rest of the Beacon Hills gang decide to go on a road trip to get away from Beacon Hills for a while. But a last-second change of plans leaves them stranded in the forests of Northern California, where a simple camping trip is transformed into a terrifying battle for survival.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or Slender.**

_**Faceless Evil**_

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**Chapter 1 – Blind Fear**

"I'm telling you, man, I don't think we should be out here."

Tom Strandberg, his eyes wide and nervous, turned his head repeatedly, scanning the trees as he hiked through the dark forest. The beam of his flashlight reflected off the trees as it shone through the night

Steve Conover, his best friend, waved his concerns off. "Oh, relax, man! It's going to be fine. I told you, these guys are cool. We won't have any problems, as long as you quit going on and on with your environmentalist crap."

"Well, I still don't like it." Tom glanced back over his shoulder, thinking he'd heard something, but nothing was there. "People tell lots of stories about this forest. Bad stories."

"Oh, not your stupid ghost stories _again!_" Steve muttered.

"They're not just stories, man!" Tom argued, ducking under a low-hanging tree branch. "Too many people have seen weird stuff out here for it to be a coincidence! You remember the story about those guys who got murdered out here last year, right?"

"Oh, not this again…" Steve groaned.

"Those guys were _torn apart_, Steve! Ripped limb from limb! And they never found out what did it!"

"That was a year ago, man! And do you really think, on the one night we're out here, we're going to run into whatever did that?"

Tom frowned. "I guess not... but I still don't like being out here."

"Oh, relax. Look, I told you, you're gonna want to see this. And we're almost there, anyway." Grinning, Steve led the way onward through the trees.

Tom looked around again. "I have a feeling that I'm really going to regret this," he muttered, before hurrying after his friend.

.

By the time the boys finally arrived at their destination, Tom was getting tired. They'd been walking for over an hour, but Steve had refused to turn back.

This had been Steve's idea; supposedly, some of his friends had a moonshine operation running out here, and he had convinced Tom to visit them as part of his weekly run to their camp. Despite his severe misgivings, Tom had agreed.

As they approached the camp, Tom noticed something… odd, briefly illuminated in the beam of his flashlight.

"Hey, look at this," he called, beckoning Steve to come back as he stopped and pointed his flashlight at the object that had captured his interest; a large tree. Attached to the trunk, perhaps stapled to it, was a white sheet of paper, with writing on it in large block letters.

DON'T LOOK OR IT TAKES YOU.

"What?" Steve asked, turning and walking back to where Tom was standing. He leaned in, shining his flashlight on the tree trunk and examining the sheet of paper. "'Don't look or it takes you,'" he read. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"How should I know?" Tom asked nervously. Something else caught his eye; on the corner of the page were the numbers "1/8", in a circle.

_One of eight? Does that mean there are seven more of these things around here?_

"Forget it," Steve said, shrugging. "We need to go." He turned around, heading onward towards the camp.

Perhaps on an impulse, Tom removed the page from the tree, folding it up and placing it in his pocket.

Then Steve yelled.

When he heard his friend's voice, Tom spun around, dashing down the dried-out creek bed they'd been following, until he burst through a line of bushes and almost ran into his friend. Steve was standing at the edge of a clearing, almost shaking.

"What's wrong?" Tom asked, panting.

Steve's voice cracked as he replied, "Look." He raised his free hand, pointing.

Tom turned to look, and then his stomach gave a violent lurch. He had to forcefully restrain himself from throwing up.

The cause of this reaction was the sight in the clearing in front of him. It was clearly Steve's friends, the moonshine operators they'd been expecting to meet with.

Or, rather, what was left of them.

The first thing Tom noticed was the blood. It was _everywhere_; splattered over the ground, the bushes, the trunks of the trees up to above head height, and the remains of the tents that had made up the moonshiners' camp. It was as if someone had set up a bomb, placed a dozen gallons of scarlet paint on top of it, and detonated them.

The tents themselves had been shredded, torn to pieces, as if someone had put them through a shredder. Strips of the destroyed tents and scattered possessions lay among the wreckage.

But the most horrifying sight of all was the moonshiners themselves. They had suffered a similar fate to the tents; their bodies had been torn apart, limbs and heads ripped off and internal organs either pulled out and scattered around or simply gone.

Steve turned away, choking; Tom simply stared in horror.

_What the hell could have done this?_

And then he heard it; the crunch of leaves underfoot, followed by the crack of a fallen branch.

But he wasn't moving. Neither was Steve.

And the sound had come from a completely different direction.

Tom felt as if he had ice cubes in his stomach. He whirled to Steve, who also looked terrified; clearly, he had heard the noises too.

"Go!" Tom yelled. Steve nodded numbly, and they took off, running back the way they had come.

As they ran, he heard a strange buzzing sound, almost like static, in his ears. The beams of their flashlights suddenly flickered.

_Oh, god,_ Tom thought.

Another _crack_ of a branch snapping underfoot, coming from behind them.

Steve started to turn his head and look back, but Tom grabbed him by the hand, pulling him onward. He remembered the writing on the page; _Don't look or it takes you._

"Don't look!" he called. "Just run!"

And then Steve tripped, and fell. He cried out as he hit the ground, scraping his knee. Tom skidded to a halt, and – before he could stop himself – he turned around.

His heart almost stopped.

Steve was scrambling to his feet. And, standing directly behind him, was an immensely tall, humanoid figure. It was at least eight feet tall, and extremely thin, with arms so long that they extended down past its knees. Its fingers were very long and bony, almost like claws. It wore a black business suit, which covered everything except its hands and head. But its head was by far the most terrifying part of its appearance. It was completely bald, its skin as smooth and white as an eggshell. But that wasn't the scary part.

It had no face. No ears, no eyes, no nose, just an indentation in its face where a mouth might otherwise have been.

"_Run!_" Tom yelled at the top of his lungs. "_Steve, it's behind you, run!_"

And Steve made a fatal mistake. Instead of running immediately, he turned around.

Upon seeing the creature, he screamed, a bloodcurdling shriek of pure terror.

As if that scream was a signal, the creature moved, like a spring suddenly released. Five long, dark tentacles, as black as a shadow, suddenly shot out of its back as if they were on springs. One of the tentacles struck forward, like a scorpion's tail, and punched, point-first, straight through Steve's chest and out his back.

"_No!_" Tom screamed, but it was already too late.

Steve gurgled, a shocked sound, as the tentacle flexed, lifting him off of his feet until his head was level with the creature's faceless visage. Another tentacle whipped across in a simple lateral blow, lashing across his neck, and his throat seemed to explode in a spray of blood. His head fell from his shoulders, instantly severed from his body, and thudded to the ground.

As the tentacle that Steve's headless body was still impaled on coiled, lifting him higher into the air, the creature's other four tentacles, including the one that had taken his head off, lashed out again, stabbing into his body in four different places.

The sound of a sickening crunching and snapping as the tentacles tore Steve's body apart was what snapped Tom out of the horrified daze he'd been in. He turned, frantically racing off into the woods, back down the creek bed towards the highway.

In the back of his mind, the rational part, Tom knew he didn't have a chance of getting away. It had taken the two of them over an hour to get out here; he was miles from the highway, where they'd left his car. This thing would catch him long before he could get there.

He was going to die.

He ran anyway.

His only chance was that the creature – _whatever the hell it was_ – would be occupied with Steve's corpse for long enough that he could get a good enough head start, and it wouldn't be able to catch up before he could get to his car and get out of there.

And he also knew what Steve hadn't; the page had to have been some kind of warning. _Don't look or it takes you_. Fairly simple to him, but not to a pothead like Steve. If he didn't look at the thing, it wouldn't kill him.

The problem was that he'd already seen it; did that fill the requirement of the warning? Or did he actually have to be looking at it for it to harm him?

Either way, Tom wasn't sticking around to find out.

As he ran back along the dried-up creek, Tom's gaze fell on something attached to a fallen tree that crossed the creek bed, reflecting the flashlight beam. He stopped, blinking in confusion, and shone the light directly on the object, illuminating it more clearly.

Another piece of paper, this one with the symbol "2/8" in its upper corner. This one had more words on it, in the same block lettering; the words "LEAVE ME ALONE", repeated seven times.

Snatching the page as the static in his ears grew even louder, Tom clambered up over the fallen tree, swinging his legs up and over it as he dropped down on the far side. There was no sign of the creature down the way he'd just come. He turned to continue running… and froze, rooted to the spot in terror.

It was right there, _right there_, standing just a few feet from him, hands at its sides. It had no eyes, but he knew it was looking at him.

The static in his ears was now blaring, a deafening chorus of white noise, signaling his impending death.

The tentacles came out, and the creature shrieked at him.

Tom Strandberg opened his mouth to scream...

Just as the beam of his flashlight flickered again, and went out.

There was an instant of blinding pain, and then everything went black.

.

**AN: Hello, everyone, and welcome to my new story, **_**Faceless Evil**_**! As you may have guessed, this story will feature everyone's favorite Teen Wolves taking on one of the most terrifying monsters of all time, Slenderman! We'll have to see how this story goes, but I hope I did Slenderman justice in this opening chapter. This chapter is basically the same kind of cold open that they've perfected on **_**Teen Wolf**_**, so hopefully I did a good job of writing it!**

**I'll be introducing the **_**Teen Wolf**_** gang next chapter and setting up the plotline for this story, so stay tuned!**

**I tremendously appreciate comments and feedback on my work, so if anyone has any questions or comments about this chapter or the story as a whole, please review! (No hate, please; that's not fun for you, me, or anyone else).**

**See you all next time!**


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